History #
The L.C. Butts was a three-masted wooden schooner built in 1872 by T. Arnold in East Saginaw, Michigan. It had a length of 173 feet, a beam of 32 feet, and a depth of 19 feet. The vessel had a gross tonnage of 769 and a net tonnage of 731. Its official registration number was 15850.
On October 31, 1891, the L.C. Butts was sailing near Fish Island at the mouth of Green Bay on Lake Michigan when it encountered a storm. The vessel was carrying a cargo of coal at the time. Due to the storm, the schooner broke loose from the steamer Niagara and was driven into shallows, where it was wrecked by wave action.
The crew of the L.C. Butts faced hardship during the incident, as did the U.S. Life-Saving crew involved in the rescue operation. Salvagers made efforts to save the vessel by pumping water out, but the schooner eventually broke in two and became a total loss. The estimated value of the vessel and its cargo was around $66,000.
Wreckers later recovered 200 tons of coal from the water near Washington Island, which was part of the cargo of the wrecked L.C. Butts. The schooner was insured for $10,000.
Despite the loss of the vessel, there were no reported fatalities among the crew. The L.C. Butts and its cargo were considered a total loss. The estimated value of the vessel and cargo was $16,000, according to the U.S. Weather Bureau’s report on wrecks from 1885 to 1893.
The L.C. Butts was registered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and had a history of operating on the Great Lakes. Unfortunately, further details about its specific ownership or operational history are not available.
